1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is adapted to be used in any type of building structure employing file cabinets, each cabinet consisting of two or more horizontally extendable drawers. It is adapted to be used in homes, offices, factories, or elsewhere in order to protect the saftey and well being of the person or person opening the drawers of the file cabinets.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Many large companies and offices have a policy requiring that all file cabinets be secured by bolting them to the wall, floor or to another file cabinet or cabinets in order to positively insure that the file cabinet or cabinets will not tip over on a person upon careless or negligent opening thereof. It has also been suggested that the file cabinet be bolted to a desk to prevent the file cabinet from tipping over.
Such procedures are expensive and unacceptable for many reasons. Bolting of the file cabinet to the wall or floor defaces the property and requires constant floor tile replacement, repairing or patching of the floor and also painting of the walls of the building structure. In addition, the bolting of the file cabinet or cabinets restricts the mobility of movement of desks and furniture upon business growth. Also the bolting of a file cabinet to a desk leaves permanent hole in the desk in a side thereof which causes a reduction in the value of the desk.
In a constantly expanding and growing business considerable movement of people, desks and files takes place over the months and years. Future moves are considerably expensive when considering the fact that each file cabinet and desk must be unbolted, removed to the new location and then rebolted. It is estimated that it takes one man hour of time to bolt three files into adjacent supports and further that it takes approximately 21/2 hours of a person's time when it is required to bolt the file cabinet to a cement floor. When an office has, as an example, a large quantity of file cabinets it requires a relatively large expenditure to safely anchor the file cabinets besides the financial loss resulting from permanently scarring or damaging the walls, rugs, desks, etc. as explained previously.
The present invention does not require bolting of the file cabinet or cabinets to any support but rather employs magnetic securement means in the form of a flexible magnetized pad which is interposed between the support and file cabinet in such a way as to prevent the tipping of the file cabinet as explained in the Abstract and will be more fully explained hereinafter.
A preliminary novelty search was conducted in the U.S. Patent Office and the following U.S. Pat. were noted: Phelon. No. 2,565,625, dated Aug. 28, 1951; Huffman, No. 2,964,201, dated Dec. 13, 1960; Lennemann, No. 2,967,038, dated Jan. 3, 1961; Schornstheimer et al, No. 3,184,807, dated May 25, 1965; Pompa, No. 3,239,178, dated Mar. 8, 1966; O'Donnell, No. 3,700,201, dated Oct. 24, 1972; and Stokstad, No. 3,758,217, dated Sept. 11, 1973. However, none of such patents have the structural features and functional advantages of the present invention.